From the Missouri Viewpoints Archives:

Public Funding and Incentives for
Professional Sports: A Home Run or a Strikeout for Taxpayers?

Author
Matt Chaney Discusses Missouri’s Stadium Funding

(Grandview, MO) – Missourians love to cheer for our
teams. We like filling up pro sports stadiums, especially in Kansas City and
St. Louis but should we also love the public funding and tax incentives that
helped put them there?

The most recent controversy came late last year when
the Missouri Development Finance Board approved $25 million in tax credits for
the Kansas City Chiefs in order to bring the team’s pre-season training camp
back to Missouri. The team will start holding the training camp in St. Joseph
before the 2010 season. The Chiefs currently go to Wisconsin for the
pre-season.

Both tax incentives and voter-approved sales tax
money are being used to renovate Kansas City’s Kauffman and Arrowhead Stadiums.

Missouri journalist, lecturer, former Southeast
Missouri State football player and author Matt Chaney says these, and every
proposal like them, are a raw deal for the public.

Calling public funding of pro sports stadiums in
hopes of creating economic development “…an outdated idea that’s basically been
debunked by independent economists nationwide…” Chaney, who is a contributor to
sports programs on ESPN and HBO on occasion, says the approach takes away money
from more appropriate needs and does not benefit the public at large.

In the interview, Chaney discusses the tactic of
professional sports franchises threatening to move unless they receive publicly
funded facilities and Kansas City’s failure to bring an NBA or NHL team to the
Sprint Center.

Chaney, who once used anabolic steroids as a college
athlete, also discusses the proliferation of “muscle drug” abuse in both
amateur and professional sports, the problems they cause and the public
obsession with sports that often fuels the abuse.

In addition to the interview with Chaney, a new
commentary is available at the website from Shamed Dogan. In the first edition
of “Right Said Shamed”, the St. Louis-area conservative who is a former staff
member of then-US Senator Jim Talent, addresses the need and challenges the
Republican Party faces in growing its base to include ethnic minorities. Learn
more about Shamed at his blog site: www.shamed.blogspot.com.

Permission is granted to
show (or embed) this edition of “Missouri Viewpoints” in its entirety on other
websites and blogs or in broadcast form. The use of quotes, video and/or audio
clips or other accounts of this program is always permitted for news coverage
and commentary purposes with proper credit